Posts Tagged ‘ Constellation Records ’

A month ago we posted Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s performance at the Hopscotch Festival. It was a strange night for acidjack — as the outdoor venue and the pouring rain created a surreal experience for GYBE show. As a nice bookend of the Canadian band’s month-long tour of the US East coast, we caught one of the NYC appearances at the intimate Music Hall of Williamsburg on Wednesday (they also played Terminal 5 and Warsaw last week).

The MHOW show was more a “traditional” GYBE show as the band’s projectionist was able to provide a stunning backdrop to the thematic post-rock being orchestrated from the stage. Additionally, the venue was the perfect size for an attentive crowd — there was virtually no chatter and the audience was fully engaged in the show. The result was virtually the perfect concert experience. If so inclined, it was literally possible to get lost in the music, as GYBE played straight through without a break and the show flowed flawlessly. This show lasted well over two hours, but if you were engaged in the music the time was immaterial. The GYBE setlist was fairly consistent with the shows of this tour with a “Hope Drone” opener and a complete run through the band’s new album Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress included. This particular show also added “Gathering Storm” early in the set and late in the show featured one of the two new songs that have appeared on this tour. The show closed with twenty-minutes of “The Sad Mafioso” that faded into a long drone where each of the band members exited the stage before guitarist Efrim Menuck returned to the stage to turn off all of the amps and end the night. It was a subtle closing of a very intense evening but seemed completely apt.

Godspeed’s US tour is complete, but the band will spend the next six weeks touring throughout Europe, dates here.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps set up on the floor inside of a nook at the front of the soundboard booth. The sound in the venue was superb and this recording captures it equally well. Enjoy!

Thanks to Tim for his tremendous help throughout the week in making this recording happen in the fashion that it did!

This Recording is Available for Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

If you download or stream this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their new album Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress from Constellation Records [HERE].

Godspeed You! Black Emperor shows are always meditative affairs, where you allow the band’s long instrumental sequences to draw you in, slowly, bombarding you with projected images against the backdrop of a black room. It’s an entirely different experience when that backdrop is of limited size, and the dark room is replaced with the downtown plaza of Raleigh, NC, lit by streetlamps and neon signs from Jimmy John’s and the local Marriott. In that environment, how can you concentrate on something like this? Can it resonate?

Perhaps nature provided the best way, in the form of a downpour that blanketed the plaza in the early going, its sheets of rain and gusts driving away the merely-curious until only the die-hards were left. Absent the excess conversations, forced to reckon with whether this show was worth it under the circumstances, those who stayed answered their own question. GSYBE shows are events; their music isn’t for everyone, and they don’t make any effort to make things otherwise. So, as I held onto my mic stand to keep it and the umbrella covering it from blowing over (which you can hear it doing at one point), I thought about the level of commitment this band requires, and how, as was the case when we covered their NYC run in 2011, they are, in fact, always worth it. Even if you can’t ignore that this setting will never be considered ideal.

This was the kickoff headlining set of Hopscotch Music Festival, and as befits GSYBE, it started with a slow drone, not a bang. After the so-called “Hope Drone,” we were were treated to the band’s entire latest album, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (my, how these people love punctuation), a four-song sequence the band refers to on setlists as “Behemoth.” Next up came a new number that is as-yet untitled, followed by two classics, “Moya” from the Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada EP and “The Sad Mafioso” from F? A? ?. If the stage was small, the band’s sweep and ambition remained titanic, as evidenced by the soaring guitars of the new number, whose sustained early peak and soaring conclusion felt like a respite from the rain itself. The attentive, soaking crowd clustered around the stage, keeping the between-song cheering polite and minimal, in keeping with the subtlety of the songs’ transitions. Once things came to a head, though, as “The Sad Mafioso” sprinted toward its stormy conclusion, the shouts began, and sustained, until long after the band had disappeared from stage, leaving that little space empty, their sound only a memory in the night’s new void.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones under an umbrella-covered mic stand directly in front of the soundboard. Other than the usual effects of distance and being outdoors, the sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

The second night of Godspeed You! Black Emperor at The Church of St. Paul the Apostle was much like the first night — that is to say incredibly moving and powerful suites of music performed flawlessly to the backdrop of constantly changing film images. The difference with the second night was that after some noise complaints in the neighborhood, the volume of the concert was about half as loud as the previous evening. Fortunately, the church-pew-seated crowd was both attentive and not distracted — Godspeed mesmerized even at half the levels. All we needed to do was listen a little more closely. I’ll admit to reaching an emotional peak at the end of this concert during “Blaise Bailey Finnegan” that after two consecutive nights was a little overwhelming. I’m streaming the track below to confirm that I wasn’t imagining its depth.

This set was recorded in the same location and equipment at the first night at St. Paul’s. The sound quality is quite similar, although the lower levels somewhat reduced the dynamics of the church setting. Enjoy!

I want to thank the many readers of this blog who wrote friendly and complimentary emails about the reason for the delay of the post of this recording. It was acidjack who set me straight and told me that I really had to post this show and not punish the thousands of real fans of this band, and to ignore the rants of some mentally ill person in an inconsequential internet forum. So thanks to the real fans.

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Constellation Records [HERE].

In our reviews of the first two Godspeed You! Black Emperor shows at Brooklyn’s Masonic Temple, acidjack truly captured the impact of a GYBE show. When the scene of the band’s NYC residency moved to The Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Lincoln Center on Thursday, the setting more closely matched the experience both visually and aurally. St. Paul’s is a huge classic old Catholic cathedral, and its hundred-foot high ceiling and intricate glasswork offered a challenge, but ultimately a fruitful reward for those listening closely. For the most part, the seated and somber setting permitted the crowd to sit in rapt attention and soak in the sonic landscapes created before them. While the band’s setlist was similar to the other NYC shows, on this particular night it was the intensity of the aural experience that ruled — in particular, GYBE’s superb sound technician Si dialed in the huge PA commissioned for these two shows and filled the room to perfection. Perhaps motivated by the surroundings, GYBE’s performance on this night was perhaps its most powerful of the week.

I recorded this set with the four microphone configuration mounted on a stand raised to fourteen feet and placed directly in front of the soundboard console. This placement was fortuitous, as the full realm of sound was captured in that part of the church. We are extremely pleased with the superb sound quality if this recording. We recommend listening on the best stereo speakers you can find. Enjoy!

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Constellation Records [HERE].

Acidjack reports:
“After Tuesday’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor show at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, I could not imagine the band being able to top itself the following night. But GYBE are far from an ordinary band, and Wednesday’s show was the type of extraordinary tour de force that humbled even their awe-inspiring Tuesday show. This show built on all of the elements that made Tuesday special — the hypnotic, narrative visuals, the seamless two-plus hours of music that ebbed and flowed, and twinkled and roared, but somehow combined them even more successfully. The set never had a moment of pure calm; instead, it was a masterful sequence of classic and new material that only continued to raise the tension. Watching the band for the second time in a row, I was struck by how quickly I became immersed in the music and images, absorbed by their creative vision. This set was slightly shorter than Tuesday’s, but tighter, with what felt like a more focused narrative. As the best performances do, it left me wanting more — and a new album, in particular.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps microphones, and the results are even better than the previous evening. Enjoy!

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Constellation Records [HERE].

Acidjack reports:
“Godspeed You! Black Emperor returned to New York after a nine-year break from our city. How the world has changed since then. When the band last played here, their music could have been the soundtrack to those times – a soundtrack to an era of real fear – not of something to do with esoteric finance – but a visceral, inescapable apprehension of a decaying world. GYBE are an unabashedly political band, and their music, as well as the intense visuals that their live performances soundtrack, are political in a mostly-abstract way. The visuals are mash-ups that evoke the world’s extremes; majesty and beauty in the midst of nascent dread. Here you see the fires of smoldering factories soundtracked by a plaintive surge of sound, where the sound of even the lowly triangle can take on menace. But there is beauty there, as there is in an unmolested glen; in a snippet of a nostalgic ramble that is both endearing and creepy. During the two and a half hour opus that was this phenomenal return to Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple (which followed a night at Terminal 5, and was followed by another night at the Masonic Temple), we were reminded that out of each paroxysm of suffering and bout of anxiety, there remains the zeal and fervor of hope. As one song flowed seamlessly into the next, it was impossible not to be taken over by it all, consumed by the vision of these masterful Montreal-based players.

When they left the stage the images endured; the fire and the pity and the violence and the hope; the precious and the profane. There are few musical acts that can cause such waves of emotion. Godspeed You Black Emperor! is one of them. Welcome back.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps microphones on a high pole in the center of the room. Thank you to Si for the excellent house mix and her support. Enjoy!”

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from Constellation Records [HERE].

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